What's In This Article
A couple of years ago I booked through Kiwi.com. I hadn’t looked through many Kiwi.com reviews prior to booking my flights because they appeared to have a 5-star service. As depicted by my go-to flight search engine Skyscanner. They also appeared legit, containing Kiwi manage my booking sections and a Kiwi customer service. Once booked I really wish I had done a more thorough search for kiwi.com reviews. As these are still scarce, I am going to go through how you can book with Kiwi.com. Comparing my experience of booking through Kiwi in 2017 to whether I would book with them now in 2019. So I recommend you read through my whole kiwi.com review before deciding whether booking through kiwi.com is right for you.
Kiwi.com Review:
Similar to many commercial flight search engines. Kiwi.com provide a traditional flight search bar alongside weekly to monthly general searches and a dedicated page of trending destinations. Showcasing prices, a number of nights and cost. The latter of which can be adjusted to your home currency by selecting the currency icon next to manage my booking on the kiwi toolbar.
An aspect I really love about kiwi.com is the use of vibrant imagery. This for me really stands out amongst other providers. Especially when it comes to my kiwi.com review as this was not prevalent in 2017. With large tiles of beautiful hotspots in select countries, you can see kiwi.com are targetting those travelling for leisure purposes rather than for business.
Quite easy to navigate, kiwi.com provide extensive search features from my often used “Anywhere” Search. Alongside pricing tables, flight durations, stop over times and many more. With Kiwi.com its seem you can really find the perfect flights to make your trip perfect.
Something I’ve not seen at all with other providers of its kind. Following on my assumption of them targetting purely leisure travellers. Is Kiwi.com tour the world nomad feature. Which allows travellers to select continental regions such as Europe, Asia or South America. Once selected the Kiwi algorithm creates a random but coordinated trip for your dates. This feature was not available on kiwi.com in 2017 and something which I am personally excited to test out over the next few months.
Online Travel Agency
Kiwi.com unlike other flight search engines and providers allow you to book your flights directly on kiwi.com. They are able to do this as Kiwi.com is effectively acting as an online travel agency or OTA. Booking with an OTA online travel agent can have its benefits. One of the main selling points with Kiwi.com is that Kiwi really does manage your booking for you. Aspects such as online check-in are completed by Kiwi.com OTA. Boarding passes are both sent to your email and are accessible on kiwi manage my booking.
Manage my booking Kiwi.com
When it comes to managing your booking on kiwi.com. You don’t need your kiwi booking number to login. You just enter the email address and password you provided when booking your flights. Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten. As a really useful feature that speaks well for kiwi customer service. Is that you can be sent a login link to your designated email. With no change of password required.
One of the key benefits booking with OTA’s such as Kiwi.com. Is all your flight bookings regardless of the airline are accessible in one area. Kiwi manage my booking works as a perfect hub for managing multiple flights. You can select seats, meals and even baggage from within the manage my booking tab on kiwi.com. Making for the perfect companion for those frequent travellers or those taking lengthy routes.
My Experience With Kiwi.com 2017
I had regretted booking with Kiwi.com back in 2017. I was looking toward booking a quick getaway into Europe. As I tend to be quite indecisive I changed my choice destinations quite a few times. It had gone from Nimes to Nice, Murcia to Barcelona and adding in Lisbon and Faro into the mix. As I mentioned earlier when It comes to looking for flights I’m a keen user of Skyscanner. From experience, they do tend to give you the lowest prices, sometimes even £1-2 lower than those listed on competitor Kayak.com.
I wanted to keep my journey continuous so decided just to fly from each destination to the next. Utilizing the Skyscanner multi-stop search function, I was provided with appeared to be the cheapest flights from my selected dates. These were all direct flights between my destinations on the dates I was looking to travel. The total price appeared regular if not slightly more than then average spend for this route.
For those who have used Skyscanner. Know after your flights are listed you can proceed to book them with the suggested websites below. For me, only one option appeared: Kiwi.com. I clicked through and saw that booking with Kiwi.com gave me the ability to book all my flights at once! Having to only enter my passport details once and pay! Usually, with multiple flights, websites would direct you to individual airline pages to proceed with the purchase.
Kiwi.com Review: At this point in 2017, I was not aware of OTA Online Travel agencies and how they operate. Nor was I aware Kiwi.com was an OTA.
Flights Booked Through Kiwi.com
I thought at the time how great! Why aren’t more people using this company? Obviously a bit sceptical I looked at their reviews on Trust Pilot with 95% of them overwhelmingly positive, knowing most people had a good experience with them I was confident enough to book my flight. Once completed, everything went smoothly! I received a booking processing email followed shortly by a confirmation email with my Kiwi booking number.
Kiwi.com Review: As mentioned earlier I had only reviewed Kiwi.com via TrustPilot and had not searched for further online reviews.
It was at this point that I became slightly apprehensive. I had only looked at the flights using Skyscanner multi-stop function. I assumed it would be fine. Booking with kiwi.com appeared at the cheapest option for my selected flight. With Skyscanner providing them as the only option to select from offering them as the cheapest price.
After further research. Entering my flight in multitabbed single searches on Skyscanner. I realised that by booking my flights separately I would have saved £70! Now I know this isn’t a lot of money but considering I travel a fair bit this could have been an extra trip! Not only could I have saved £70. This could have been saved by booking the flight separately via Kiwi.com also.
Reaching Out – Kiwi Customer Service
Coming to the realisation I’d been dupped. I decided to call Kiwi customer service advertising that they have 24/7 support. In my mind, I’m thinking it’ll be fine they should be able to sort this out for me. As most people believe when they are contacting customer service.
After being unable to get through to Kiwi customer service for a good hour, I ended the call, as I had work to be getting back too. I decided to call them again the following day in hopes of being put through to someone. Calling the next day I was placed through to a kiwi customer service operative within 10 minutes. A minimal wait time compared to my hour plus the day prior.
One I had explained the problem to Kiwi customer service. Here is where it got interesting! I spoke to the customer service agent and I stated the issue to them. I informed them that I booked my flight through Kiwi.com and paid an extra £70. That I would have saved had I booked my flights separately. Asking if they would honour the correct prices of these flight? I was immediately shut down and told No.
I asked why and they stated that “prices always change” which of course is correct. Although not accurate for the situation as I had checked immediately after my confirmation came through. I was then provided with the same generic response, flight prices change consistently “our prices are kiwi.com prices” which shocked me slightly. As a first-time customer contacting Kiwi customer service I would have thought they would’ve aimed to make my experience as positive as possible.
Kiwi.com Review: Many established travel companies, such as Expedia and Last minute to name a few offer a price match services even after booking. I was shocked that Kiwi customer service did not offer a similar service.
Further, in the conversation, I exclaimed that this was terrible business practice. To which response I was shocked to hear and found hilarious at the same time. “Kiwi.com is a company and they have to make money somehow”. At this point, I was beyond done with trying to debate with this kiwi customer service agent. I explained how that’s even worse practice to take advantage of your customers and there are better practices even enforced by similar agencies that are much more successful than you. Usually, I would try and fight to the end. However, I could see this company and its practices were ones that were stringently enforced and would not be subject to criticism.
2019 Kiwi.com Review – Would I book again?
I know now that kiwi customer service cares very little about their customers. I also am aware they are in the business solely for monetary gain.
In hindsight, I have definitely learnt from my mistake. I am aware I was more at fault for not doing due diligence when it came to flight searches. However, this did bring to light Kiwi customer service and the experience of booking with an OTA online travel agency.
There are definitely positives to booking with kiwi.com. Such as the benefit of an OTA online travel agency. Providing ease of booking multiple flights all at once. The ability to manage all your flight bookings in one place. Negatively I don’t think that these “benefits” are worth the potential excess amount you could pay for flights, booking through kiwi.com! Which is why I would always suggest if you are looking to save money. Make sure if you are booking through Kiwi.com you are getting the best deal
Although I have yet to book with kiwi.com in 2019 I definitely would not be opposed to giving this company another try. Looking at how far their OTA has come in 2 years I am excited by their progress. They have built a beautifully functioning website. Perfect for leisure and long term nomad based travellers. I truly hope Kiwi customer service has followed in this development.
Well, I hope you guys found this guide article useful! Let me know below if you have any questions!
Monk Out.
Pin This Post And Share The Love.
